Champions League

There’s no escaping the fact that the draws for the Champions League and the Europa League are ridiculous. These hugely overdone gala affairs take three hours to achieve what could be done in ten minutes. The saving graces - scowling club directors, getting to see Clarence Seedorf again - are vastly overshadowed by the ludicrous complexity of everything and UEFA’s willingness to blow their own trumpet at every conceivable opportunity. The entire event is comical, but it doesn’t really matter.

The 2016-17 UEFA Champions League Round of 16 draw took place early Monday morning in Nyon, Switzerland and left us with some very entertaining match ups:

We thought this year might be different. How wrong we were. We thought this might be the year that Arsenal finally catch a break in the Champions League round of 16 and push through to the quarterfinals, ending a six-year round of 16 losing streak. We thought "surely they won't draw Bayern Munich again, that would be too cruel even for the soccer gods".

Arsenal drew Bayern Munich again.

The 2016-17 Champions League Group Stage has finished with all the usual contenders set to battle it out in the round of 16. Monday’s draw has handed us the following match ups:

What the hell, let's just run it back!

Just play if over again tomorrow. Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund are uniquely constructed to bring the best out of each other, for whatever reason, and Wednesday's Champions League tie was no different.

Real Madrid went up 2-0 via Karim Benzema scoring on great passes from Dani Carvajal and James Rodriguez, respectively.

The school of Barcelona detests the characterization of tiki-taka when discussing their style of play, so let’s just say that Barca passed the s*** out of Gladbach when the two teams met on Tuesday in the Champions League.

One of the reasons that this conception of zonal play is met with such derision from the likes of Pep Guardiola and Luis Enrique is the fact that it denotes an attack devoid of entertainment and sterile in the extreme.

Look at what this fool Edinson Cavani did.